Hillary being a "copycat" is a good thing - more please!
Yeah, it's frustrating to watch an establishment figure trumpeted for ambling easily up the trails that others, largely ignored, took risks to blaze: gay rights; corporate-focused trade agreements; private prisons; Keystone; and on and on forever. But being the shifty late arrival to mass movement ideals after the struggle for legitimacy has been fought is all you can expect of members of the establishment.
Who expects establishment pols to stake out high-risk lonely positions? May as well expect a dog to speak, or a cat to listen. It is expectation against the thing's nature - every sinew and synapse of it.
This is an establishment trait because it works - it rewards the ambitious with power and money. Enlistment in uncertain struggles and resignation to obscurity just are not in their nature. This is not at all limited to Hillary of course, and it's not to say establishment pols don't have ideals, feelings or thoughts - these are just subordinated to goals of personal elevation and public prominence, denominated in money or power. The ideals are still in there and still have influence, or there would be no Democrats.
Bernie obviously hews far more to the idealistic side, taking some lonely and risky positions but maintaining enough establishment in him to be elected Senator. Idealist upsets against the establishment are supremely rare in a race for positions of power and accumulation of money.
When it comes to deciding the paths establishment pols use to pursue money or power, however, idealists are the natural rulers there. We've come off a period of "Great Moderation" - the establishment succeeded in controlling their own paths to success for a time, leading to public apathy and the Great Recession. Now people are grasping after idealism again in any form, and the establishment is going to run to where the idealists arrive safely. Establishment GOP candidates will talk fences and deportations, establishment Democratic candidates will talk de-privatizing prisons and scuttling trade agreements. This would seem nuts 15 years ago.
That Bernie was on board earlier with many now-safe ideals, in some cases much earlier, than Hillary should come as no surprise; however, it's no bad thing to have idealists like Bernie (and more importantly the ones who blazed the trail for Bernie!) pressuring establishment figures and guiding them up that trail. After all, establishment figures are very likely to win. It's what they're best at. If they end up winning after ambling to a spot where socialism has made a comeback in public perception, that's no bad thing! They still won't be socialist, but they might be a lot better! Call it the "I support civil unions" of socialism.
Bernie's correct that the best president with the best progressive ideals could do nothing without a mass movement, as plenty of pressure exists from the reactionaries whether any mass movement exists or not. An establishment president can be an awesome president with the right amount of pressure from us - much better than an incredible idealist wonder-unicorn president without that pressure. The establishment will maintain a majority (in whatever party) and simply laugh at him/her.
To be clear, I support the wonder-unicorn, and Bernie's the best I've seen in some time. We're still likelier to get the establishment figure. If we've made it necessary to oppose Keystone, TPP and private prisons, at least in the primary, the next aim should be to make it necessary to publicly support expanding Social Security.
The stronger and more specific the primary promise on this and other issues ("any plan I sign ... must include a public option" notwithstanding), the better Hillary will be as president. She's very smart and tough. Can we agree that if she fails to be utterly consistent with 2002 establishment Hillary, or with 2010 Hillary on some issues, that can often be a VERY GOOD THING?
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Very good read! 